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Friday, December 29, 2017

Wall Street set to open higher on final trading day of 2017

(Reuters) - U.S. stocks were poised to open on a bright note on the final trading day of 2017, wrapping up a year in which major Wall Street indexes recorded their best performance since 2013.

The year in U.S. markets in five graphs

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks are poised to close out 2017 with a stellar performance, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average , S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite all poised for gains of roughly 20 percent or more.

Goldman expects $5 billion hit to quarterly earnings due to new tax law

(Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc said on Friday it expects fourth-quarter earnings to decrease by about $5 billion due to the new U.S. tax law signed by President Donald Trump last week.

Trump targets Amazon in call for postal service to hike prices

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday targeted online retailer Amazon in a call for the country's postal service to raise prices of shipments in order to recoup costs.

Airbus sprints from behind in bid to upset Boeing order lead

PARIS (Reuters) - Airbus is pulling out the stops to try and take the lead in its annual order contest with Boeing, lining up a spree of billion dollar deals to close a traumatic year dominated by management upheaval and corruption investigations.

SoftBank succeeds in tender offer for Uber shares

(Reuters) - A consortium led by SoftBank Group Corp will buy a large number of shares of Uber Technologies Inc in a deal that values the ride-services firm at $48 billion, Uber said on Thursday, in a victory for new Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi.

U.S. oil prices hit highest since mid-2015 on surprise output drop

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - U.S. oil prices hit their highest since mid-2015 on the final trading day of the year as an unexpected fall in American output and a fall in commercial crude inventories stoked buying.

Hong Kong eyes blockbuster China tech IPO queue, led by Xiaomi

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong bankers are eyeing a slew of blockbuster IPOs from Chinese technology firms with a total market capitalization of some $500 billion over the next two years, in a sharp contrast to 2017 - the city's worst year for raising equity in a decade.

Apple apologizes after outcry over slowed iPhones

(Reuters) - Facing lawsuits and consumer outrage after it said it slowed older iPhones with flagging batteries, Apple Inc is slashing prices for battery replacements and will change its software to show users whether their phone battery is good.

South Korea students dive into virtual coins, even as regulators crack down

SEOUL (Reuters) - Hackers have stolen millions, lawmakers are pushing for new taxes and regulations, and a leading financial official has called them a "Ponzi scheme".